There's been a gender neutral campaign running a long while now... someone's even gone to great lengths plotting which words would fill the gap. Along the lines of xe, xem, xyr, xyrs and xemself/ves and a few other alternatives too. I don't think the movement has ever had the critical mass mind to effect a change.
My take on it is yeah, to cover it we'll have to invent a word for it. There are other problems with the language the male-dominated western civ evolution has either created or overlooked. This is a good one to start.
Okay, it's been changed. Now you know. I mean, obviously I'm not a sufficient authority to declare this. But you're not a sufficient authority to deny it, either. That's the problem with a prescriptivist view of grammar. Unless we have a governmental language police, like the French do, who is the authority? You scoff at style guides (and I have no idea how you were a journalist without writing to a standard style, but that's a discussion for another day), don't care about Oxford dictionaries... so who IS the authority you're referring to when you tell us singular they is incorrect? Of course if you don't care for the singular they you shouldn't use it. I don't care for it so I don't use it. But to declare it wrong with no authority other than just... well, no authority at all, really? That doesn't work.
If you reject style guides, then what's your authority for decreeing that something is incorrect? The gender-neutral singular "they" was commonly used in the past, and it's well on its way to coming back to being standard.
Hi, nonbinary person here. They/them/their would indeed be the correct pronouns, you are correct. Even I think it's weird, but hey, it's all the English language offers us.
"...you're not a sufficient authority to deny it, either...." I don't need to be sufficient authority to state facts. Folks can make all the outrageous claims they want, fine with me. It doesn't require authority to say the boiling point is thus degrees, or the earth is this many miles from the sun. If someone wishes to refute such things, fine. Do it. And, no, no matter what you wish, desire, insist upon, declare, assert, believe they is plural in English. I don't require authority to say yay or nay on the matter. It's as consequential as someone declaring water isn't wet. Fine. Do it.
Facts are absolute only for a short period of time. Nothing can remain unchanged for all eternity even what we consider absolute. If you look at it in the long run, absolutes are only absolutes until they are wrong. That's why there is such variety. Consider the English language. It is only as defined as we make it. It is ever growing and changing. Slang is the perpetual evolvement of any language. It is not set in stone, but it does take time to change. Case point: Shakespeare alone added 1700 words to our language.
Interesting philosophy. There are hundreds of philosophies. Communicating with symbols is completely arbitrary. If I want I can say "ugh" is the singular for he and she. I can steadfastly approve of anyone using ugh to my heart's content. However, that doesn't mean anyone else I'm communicating with will understand "ugh" to mean what I insist it means. Okay, you can use a word how you think it should be used and throw all sorts of philosophical reasoning or justifications backed up by various facts all you want. If the people with whom you are communicating do not read the symbol in the way you insist it should, hey presto - exercise in futility. In my country the population reads on the eighth-grade level. Not all, but it's enough of an average to have introduced the idea of the "fog count". Write sentences in five to six words, no more than one multi-syllabic word per sentence. Editors rule, and editors enforce. You can go to an editor's desk and clamor, debate, petition, what have you. You will not win. And, since the people in my country can only read at that level, it's highly-unlikely the majority of them would be able to present a cogent reason to alter even their own language. In all likelihood laziness and nothing more will be the motivation - couched in "well-considered" logic. Any usage will become the rule by getting just one thing to happen. Get the majority of the people with whom you communicate to accept your symbol for your intended concept, and you've got it. Ugh is now the singular for he and she. Well done. As a parting shot here's another statement that a lot of people seem to find objectionable: The first rule to communication is if there is a failure in communication it is always the fault of the sender.
Who are these editors you think are in charge? That hasn't been my experience with editors at all. But, assuming it's true... the editors at the Washington Post, who, after all, rule and enforce, have decreed that singular "they" is correct. So you can go to their desk and clamor, debate, petition, what have you, but you will not win. Singular "they" is correct, by declaration of the editors.
This is with regard to writing fiction, not journalism. And, yeah, write for the Washington Post, live under their dominion. When I wrote for AP, then AP Style was the papal bull. I'll bet New York Times writers have to meet the New York Times editors' standards. Whaddya think? Where are you folks getting the idea this is all my idea in the first place? You're not laboring under the aura of the internet forum post, are you? There's a heavy element of, "Who does he think he is anyway, huh?"
Uh...sure it does. Oh, you can measure the boiling temperature of water, but you need an authority to tell you the distance from the sun--you're not in a position to run up there with a tape measure. And creating the thermometer to measure the boiling temperature of water required all sorts of authorities and standards. You, personally, did not define the Fahrenheit or Celsius standards, or do the work to determine the behavior of mercury in a glass tube, or the behavior of thermocouples. That required the work of dozens, probably hundreds, of authorities. Maybe you're seeing "authority" as someone who makes arbitrary decrees--as you're trying to do. But "authority" can also mean someone who has specific knowledge and skills, and has established a common understanding with other authorities. So you're putting yourself ahead of Jane Austen, the Washington Post, Lewis Carroll, the Oxford English Dictionary, the King James Bible, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Charles Dickens, George Eliot...I'm getting tired of typing. If you choose to refrain from the singular they/their, that's fine. The thing that annoys is your apparently unshakeable belief that you, just you, are the creator of language reality for the entire English-speaking population.
ugh...hopeless "...putting yourself...." Right. I taught myself English. All those courses, it was actually me at the front of the room and administering the exams. Gotcha. I totally missed that one.
So you're not the one who's in this thread decreeing that the singular they/their is wrong? Somebody else is typing your posts?
I can't decree something that is already established fact. Sorry. You'll have to find some else to flame adolescently on the internet.
We've all taken English classes. We know what used to be taught. But things have changed. They've changed back, apparently, to the way they used to be. "They" is now considered standard English by many authorities. Grammar rules are constructs, not natural laws. If enough people decide that grammar rules are something different then they used to be then, Shazam, grammar rules are different. As I've said, I don't like this one either. I internalized the "they is plural" rule deeply enough that it feels wrong for me to use it as singular. But my feelings don't trump reality.
I'm fairly boggled at the idea that you think that there can be established facts in a "soft" area like language, while you're not prepared to offer any evidence or authority for that fact. It's rather like you declaring that it's an established fact that chocolate chip is the best cookie. The area of a triangle can be argued as an established fact. For things like language or baked goods, you need evidence, analysis, and a set of rules for that analysis.
Before we flame up folks let us adjust our point of view for a moment. @Denegroth you made a fantastic point in that it is our job to clearly communicate with our readers. As a reader of fantasy, there are a plethora of made up words, be they species names, curse words- even whole languages, and worlds I get 'experience' through the author's writing. If I am reading the series I by choice give substance to the author's 'world'. As a writer of fantasy myself, is that not my job? To create a world in a its imaginings that is believable or fantastical enough for the reader to want to believe in thereby lending weight to words I have made up or misused (within a reasonable degree)?
Yeah, I wanted to grab a reference sheet for a bunch of nonbinary pronouns and look up a date for just how long people have been recorded proposing them earlier, but frankly I'm about two more minutes from succumbing to the Thanksgiving food coma, hahah. Xe/xem/xyr and ze/zir are the most common ones outside of 'they' as far as I've seen (possibly biased since I've used them myself). Really, 'they' makes the most sense as a general non-gendered pronoun considering we already totally use it for that - eg "oh, someone spilled their drink over here". We absolutely use 'they' as a singular when we don't know the person in question's gender, and most of us do it without even noticing. It's not some great leap. I do think more people are beginning to realize that, though I understand some will always be stuck in their ways. Personally it drives me right up the wall to see 'he' used as a default pronoun or, god forbid, the aesthetically unpleasing 's/he' or clunky 'he or she'. I don't care if they're grammatically correct.
They. A common inaccuracy is the use of the plural pronoun when the antecedent is a distributive expression such as each, each one, everybody, every one, many a man, which, though implying more than one person, requires the pronoun to be in the singular. Similar to this, but with even less justification, is the use of the plural pronoun with the antecedent anybody, any one, somebody, some one, the intention being either to avoid the awkward "he or she," or to avoid committing oneself to either. Some bashful speakers even say, "A friend of mine told me that they, etc." Use he with all the above words, unless the antecedent is or must be feminine. The Elements of Style; Strunk, W., Jr. and White, E.B. V. WORDS OR EXPRESSIONS COMMONLY MISUSED, Page 24 (of course, I just pulled it out of my @$$)
@Denegroth, you're citing a style guide despite waving off the ones @BayView mentioned earlier as "useful only when one wishes to generate a uniformity in text". I don't get it. Are you joking at this point?
So you do respect authorities, when they agree with you. The very first edition of what became the Elements of Style was apparently published in 1919. I'd have to read all of the editions to see if it still reflects the usage of approximately a century ago, or if it's been updated to some degree. Certainly "use he with all the above words" is extremely old-fashioned thinking. I would grant far more respect and authority to the style guides that you reject. The Elements of Style is a well-regarded book, worth reading, but it's really not a standard--it's fairly commonly known to have a number of errors, such as a lack of understanding of passive voice. It's a set of opinions about style, not an authority.
Well, it suggests that you've accepted the idea that reality might not be defined solely by you, so that's progress.
You're ascribing an attitude here that I, at least, certainly don't have (and don't believe Chicken or anyone else has either). No one's trying to have a gotcha moment. I just don't see how you reconcile insisting that your methods are as right as water being wet with their bases being no less credible or valid than different/opposing methods. I'm not here to tell you that you have to use singular they or any other non-gendered pronoun. If you don't like it, you don't have to use it. But there's really no strong argument against it.
